Sobolev spaces on locally finite graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we develop the theory of Sobolev spaces on locally finite graphs, including completeness, reflexivity, separability, and Sobolev inequalities. Since there is no exact concept of dimension on graphs, classical methods that work on Euclidean spaces or Riemannian manifolds can not be directly applied to graphs. To overcome this obstacle, we introduce a new linear space composed of vector-valued functions with variable dimensions, which is highly applicable for this issue on graphs and is uncommon when we consider to apply the standard proofs on Euclidean spaces to Sobolev spaces on graphs. The gradients of functions on graphs happen to fit into such a space and we can get the desired properties of various Sobolev spaces along this line. Moreover, we also derive several Sobolev inequalities under certain assumptions on measures or weights of graphs. As fundamental analytical tools, all these results would be extremely useful for partial differential equations on locally finite graphs.